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My second chapbook, "The Second Book of Pearl: The Cats" is now available as either a paper chapbook or as a downloadable item. See below for the Pay Pal link or click on its cover just to the right of the newest blog post to download to your Kindle, iPad, or Nook. Just $3.99 for inspired tales of gin, gambling addiction and inter-feline betrayal.

My first chapbook, I Was Raised to be A Lert is in its third printing and is available both via the PayPal link below and on smashwords! Order one? Download one? It's all for you, baby!

Sunday, April 15, 2012

... And I Awoke, Dazed, to Discover I'd Been Watching a Community Access Channel

By the time I reached home, the TV had worked itself into a righteous, vigorous anger.

Apparently word had reached it – and I’m not blaming anyone specific here but I do strongly suspect my laptop, a sleek sexy bit of an appliance who can’t keep her damn lid closed – that I would no longer be spending time in front of the TV, butt planted, mouth open.

The TV was angry; and for reasons I still don’t understand, smelled slightly of stale cigarettes.

“What? I’m not big enough for you, Miss High-and-Mighty? Is that it? You think because you’ve a bath tub and a shower that you’re too big for the primetime line-up?”

“Hey, I never said…”

“Oh, save your breath, Miss I-Never-Heard-of-Him-Who-Is-This-Maury-Povich-Person! I know what you watch! You hear me? I know what you watch!”

“Hey, now. There’s no need to –“

“Tell it to the Marines, okay? Where’s the thanks, huh? Should I tell all your brainy friends about your Tetris addiction?”

“Wha—what?”

“Ha! You think I don’t remember that? You think I don’t remember you and your Nintendo? Hours and hours of Mario Brothers? Of Tetris? How you’d play until you swore the city’s skyline had gaps in it you thought you could fill in if the right piece ever came down?”

My face burned with shame.

The TV laughed cruelly. “Thought I’d forgotten that, didn’t you?”

“Look, that was a long time ago.”

The TV laughed again, his power indicator fever-red. “I don’t need your crap,” he spat. “I had a life, you hear me? I had a life before you!”

I lost control of myself. “You didn’t! You had no life! I paid for you! I paid for you and I dusted you and I moved you every single time I moved! Do you hear me?”

I turned my back on him and burst into tears. “You think this is easy? You think I don’t still care for you? It’s just gotten dirty! I feel cheap! I have a callus from using the remote! The middle cushion on the couch has a Pearl’s-butt-shaped dent in it! If I’m not careful – oh, God! I’m going to end up watching Fox News!”

The full horror of the situation hit me at that moment; and I fell on to the ground in front of the TV, sobbing.

The TV made staticky, cooing noises.

“Movies, maybe? You’ve been promising Ma you’d watch the first season of Heroes for almost two years now. Maybe we could do that? Huh? The Dune movies? What about the Lord of the Ring Trilogy? You like that, don’t you?”

I sat up, nodding dully and wiping my eyes with the sleeve of my shirt.

“I don’t know. I don’t know if we can be friends. We’ll just have to take it slowly.”

Whew! What a relief it is to know someone else has ongoing conversations with their teedlely veedlely. Um... I just gotta know, though. Do you wear that pair of Cavallis the Russian guy led you to at Savers, when you play Tetris?

LOL damn TV's, we might hold the remote control in our hands, but who is really in control? I sold my TV and got a new one, one which is not an attention seeker and I'm in love with it. I gently brush off the dust faithfully each and every week (when I'm home), I ensure the remote is where it should be and head back up to write yet another paper, my TV understands my lifestyle... thankfully! ;-)

Now this was good and really our tv's now more about us then is safe they know about our addiction with cooking shows even when do don't cook.........or in my case my fasanation with crime and war and gangs really the tv needs be appeased or it will blab to everyone and that would not be good.......the only one who knows us any better is our computer and that is another story........lol

...And I awoke, dazed, to discover I'd been watching the BBC and being in Britain, I found out that in order to watch the BBC, I would require a TV Licence. Heck, I haven't even passed the test and that darned 'L' plate on my screen is doing my head in....